Mechanisms are provided for dynamically adjusting assignment of software threads to hardware threads in virtual machine (VM) environments. The mechanisms receive, by a virtual machine manager (VMM), an indication of workload priority from a plurality of VMs. The indication indicates a priority of a workload executing on each VM in the plurality of VMs. The mechanisms provide, by the VMM, an indication of physical resource usage to each VM. The indication of physical resource usage is an indication of physical resource usage across all VMs in the plurality of VMs. The mechanisms automatically adjust, by each VM, assignment of corresponding software threads to hardware threads based on the indication of physical resource usage and a priority of a workload executing on the VM to achieve a balance of usage of hardware threads across all VMs in the plurality of VMs.